For years, I believed something I never said out loud: the only thing standing between me and being found out was how much I worried. I didn’t quite recognize it as a belief. And had I recognized it, I probably would have been embarrassed to admit it. But it shaped the way I worked. It […]
We all have our moments. A comment delivered in a tone sharper than we intended. A face that settles into something closer to a scowl than the calm exterior we were hoping to display. An internal sigh that gets out before we can stop it. Almost every physician who lets an internal state show externally […]
You learned a lot of medicine in training. You also learned a lot of things that were never on the syllabus. Medical training conditioning is not a single lesson Be a good doctor. Be smart. Hardworking. Emotionally blunt. Perfectionist. We called all of this excellence. It was conditioning. The Tuesday I Stopped in My Tracks […]
When I started medical school, the curriculum had just shifted to small-group case discussion. Six to ten students sat around a table every week. A faculty member graded our participation. I dreaded it. I am naturally introspective. Generally, I think before I speak, and I process internally before I respond externally. In a room that […]
The first morning I signed out a patient as the attending, nobody behind me was going to catch what I missed. The pay was better. The call schedule looked lighter on paper. Vacation accrued. And I still stayed an extra hour to confirm a finding nobody had asked me to confirm. If you are a […]
I showed up to my first overnight call in a tie, a dress shirt, and khakis. The chief resident took one look at me and laughed. “Put on scrubs,” she said. “You’re going to be more comfortable.” She was right about the scrubs. She was also right, in ways I wouldn’t understand for months, about […]
I have been teaching physicians to audit their Energy Accounts for two years. Then I spent six weeks wearing a sensor from Arena Labs that audited them for me. The numbers did not lie. By week three, I could pull up a graph that told me, almost to the day, when I had run a […]
I trained before resident work-hour restrictions. During one stretch of residency, my car broke down. I dropped it at a mechanic at 5:30 AM before call, took a cab to the hospital, worked a full day, stayed overnight, rounded the next morning, and finished clinic around 5:30 PM the following day. A shuttle picked me […]
Spring has arrived in the Midwest, and recently I’ve spent a good chunk of my Saturday blowing leaves, trimming back deadwood, and preparing the yard for the growing season. I love getting my hands dirty. Our yard is a bit of an experiment. We grow vegetables and herbs, have a raspberry patch and a few […]
Series: Part 1: System Transformation | Part 2: Provider Solutions | Part 3 In this final installment of our three-part series, we shift the spotlight to patients and communities. The American healthcare system spends more than any other country yet delivers underwhelming outcomes: life expectancy lags peers and lifestyle-related chronic diseases are the norm. High […]
